NHS Liverpool seeks telehealth provider

NHS Liverpool Clinical Commissioning Group (NHS LCCG) is soliciting a telehealth (remote patient monitoring) technology for a three-year contract. The first step for the telehealth provider is to submit a Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) document by 5 September. If invited, providers will tender for the provision of telehealth technology services. The contract is valued at £2.4 – £14.4 million (including VAT), to start 3 April 2017 and extendable for two years after the initial three. The clinical portion–patient recruitment/assessment, back-end clinical monitoring and clinical support elements– is part of LCCG’s NHS Community Health Services provision and will be separately bid. For complete information, see the listing on the new Gov.UK Contracts Finder. Hat tip to Suzanne Woodman.

Our definitions

Telehealth and Telecare Aware posts pointers to a broad range of news items. Authors of those items often use terms 'telecare' and telehealth' in inventive and idiosyncratic ways. Telecare Aware's editors can generally live with that variation. However, when we use these terms we usually mean:

• Telecare: from simple personal alarms (AKA pendant/panic/medical/social alarms, PERS, and so on) through to smart homes that focus on alerts for risk including, for example: falls; smoke; changes in daily activity patterns and 'wandering'. Telecare may also be used to confirm that someone is safe and to prompt them to take medication. The alert generates an appropriate response to the situation allowing someone to live more independently and confidently in their own home for longer.

• Telehealth: as in remote vital signs monitoring. Vital signs of patients with long term conditions are measured daily by devices at home and the data sent to a monitoring centre for response by a nurse or doctor if they fall outside predetermined norms. Telehealth has been shown to replace routine trips for check-ups; to speed interventions when health deteriorates, and to reduce stress by educating patients about their condition.

Telecare Aware's editors concentrate on what we perceive to be significant events and technological and other developments in telecare and telehealth. We make no apology for being independent and opinionated or for trying to be interesting rather than comprehensive.